


the grand days of great men and the smallest of gestures

by niniadepapa



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, and thus this happened, in which i have painful headcanons of killian!achilles and helen!emma, troy au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 07:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2339375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niniadepapa/pseuds/niniadepapa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s beautiful, he realizes all over again, - the loveliest sight he has ever seen, all sad eyes and golden hair, and for once he doesn’t see Briseis behind his eyelids, not the echo of her laugh or the sea in her gaze, - yet he has to wonder if a smiling Helen would put the moon to shame. </p><p>[troy au where killian plays achilles and emma is helen of troy and i let them interact because i have issues]</p>
            </blockquote>





	the grand days of great men and the smallest of gestures

He grips a slender arm with his free hand, the other still dangling the almost empty bottle he had been drowning his sorrows in. There’s a quiet whimper, more startled than hurt, and he tugs on the hooded figure until his back is against his chest. “And where do you think you may be going?”

“Let me go.”

The voice is firm and hissing, but Achilles has hunted and fought too many a beast to recognize the fear in his prey. He reaches out and firmly tugs on the hem of the hood, gaze landing on the most unexpected creature he’d have ever imagined to encounter there, in the dark, mossy tunnels outside the impregnable walls of the city. 

A swan, just like the one who fathered her mother, legend says. 

“Do my eyes deceive me? Is it really you, Helen, Princess of Troy?” he breathes. 

Her face, even trying to muster her composure, pinches in alarm. “How would you…”

“Yours is a face mesmerizing enough to launch a thousand ships,” he tells her, taking note of the tiny details that the breathed stories about her had never mentioned: the curve of her cheekbones, the shade of her eyes, the smooth skin of her neck. “For once, rumors are true.”

Helen raises one delicate eyebrow, and he almost smiles at the cold indifference dripping from her words. “Same could be said about you.” She gives him an appraising look, though he would swear she almost sneers at the sight. “Achilles, commander of the Myrmidons.”

He comes closer, then, one arm still snaked around her middle, and bows his head to whisper in her ear. “Nothing else worth remembering about me, then?”

To her credit, she doesn’t even flinch at his proximity. He tries not to dwell on that fact too much - beauty such as hers surely must have attracted men from all over, and he knows better than to believe that all whom have touched her did so by her wishes. 

He fails miserably. 

“Your easily wounded pride may be infamous enough,” she spits back, clearly hoping to get a raise out of him. He is faintly amused, truthfully, and can’t fight her statement - he is one proud bastard and he doesn’t delude himself into thinking he’ll change anytime soon, - so instead he slowly pries away from her, studying her with an inquisitive look.

“Where may you be going, if you don’t mind me asking?” Then, he raises a hand to his chest, even though his mocking tone chases away any respect the gesture may have had. “My most sincere condolences over your husband’s passing. You must be devastated. Perhaps you’re searching for someone else to warm your bed and ease your sorrow?”

It hadn’t come as a surprise between the Greeks, the whispered claims of the long trail of suitors that followed every step of the golden princess whenever she left the castle. Neither had the rumors about her scorn towards Paris, a man preferring to sit in his room making love to his wife and leaving others to fight for him, lacking the spirit for battle, not minding the mess he had brought upon his kingdom. 

She raises her head, holding herself high and proud, - a true princess, a future queen. Royalty and power course through her veins, and even him, the mightiest of warriors, son of kings and nymphs, is mesmerized at the sight. “That is no concern of yours.” 

“It is if you are planning to flee, never to be seen again, swan. After all, it is you who brought doom to Troy.” He can’t help but call her like the bird he saw when he captured her. 

She bristles, baring her teeth at him. “I never asked for any of it.”

He is tempted to ask if she means her beauty, the war or her marriage to Paris. 

He doesn’t.

Instead, he inches closer, dropping his voice, his rum-soaked breath heavy in the air until they’re nose to nose. “So you would gladly watch this city burn, princess? Why do you hate it so much?” he asks her, fighting the urge to reach a hand to bring her close, to swallow that scent - that mix of spice, despair and the sea, something he would swear Aphrodite herself smells of, the goddess who made her who she is.

Her voice cracks even when her face stays stony, smooth alabaster for skin and jade in her eyes. “Troy’s princess I may be, but it’s not my home.” 

She’s beautiful, he realizes all over again, - the loveliest sight he has ever seen, all sad eyes and golden hair, and for once he doesn’t see Briseis behind his eyelids, not the echo of her laugh or the sea in her gaze, - yet he has to wonder if a smiling Helen would put the moon to shame. 

He wonders if her smile is as beautiful as she is. 

“Where are you going, then?”

She gulps, and in the silent tunnel it echoes against the walls surrounding them. “You may escort me back to your ships.”

He falters as realization hits him, and he promptly masks his disbelief with a scoff. “Princess, your return won’t stop this war. Your abduction may have been a sweet tale to feed the Greeks to sail here, but we both know better. Agamemnon won’t give up until those walls are turned to dust, and your people are either slaved or killed.”

Those eyes of hers brim with tears, and he can feel his blood practically singing at the sight, an unknown urge to do something about it - protect her, care for her, wipe them away and promise her the world, anything - surges through him, all-consuming and unnerving. 

“Yours is the gift of battle, not foretelling. You cannot know that.”

He shrugs. “I am no seer, but I do know Agamemnon. He will hunt, torment, use and deal with anything or anybody in his power to get Troy.”

He does know Agamemnon, more than he would care to admit. The man is a monster disguised in gold and silks as king, his hunger for power almost as notorious as his rivalry with Achilles himself. 

Achilles had never appreciated the king’s sneers and taunts or his predisposition to stay behind while his men died for him on the battlefield. 

Helen is silent for a while, quietly studying him, a game of shadows and lights playing on her fair features. “You hate him. For what he did to your maiden, that poor Trojan girl. Just as you hated Hector for killing your Patroclus.” And then, bolder. “Why would I believe anything you say? You would do anything to tramp his plans.”

He sneers, staring her down disdainfully. “Beautiful you may be, princess, but rumors had never mentioned your naiveté. Agamemnon only thinks about himself.”

Before he can say anything else, to his utmost surprise, she lunges at him, one swift hand slipping under his arm and snatching a knife he had previously stowed at his waist, never one to go unarmed even though anybody would consider his bare hands lethal weapons. He has her pinned against the rocky wall in an instant, her breath hot and panicked at his neck, the blade dangerously hovering between them. 

His eyes widen when he notices the pointy edge almost nicking the pale skin of her neck, and finally the last piece of the puzzle that he was been privy to Helen of Troy falls into place. 

The swan who would rather become a ghost than fly away. 

He tips his head, closing his eyes briefly only to immediately lock gazes with her determined one. “Do it. Sometimes sweet oblivion is the only answer we can ask for, is it not?” Shaking his head, he exhales longly, deeply. “It would only further enrage the Greeks, princess. A spark lightning the flames that have never stopped burning since prince Paris took you away from Sparta.”

He doesn’t know what to expect. Helen of Troy on her knees, crying for the mercy of death. Pleas for him to take her back to the ships, withstanding her failure. A promise to give him anything after letting her march back to the city she never dared call home. 

He had thought he had her figured out, the reason behind her flight in the cover of the night clear. 

Nothing prepares him for her lifting the blade higher, now over her face, ready to maim porcelain skin beyond repair. “I do not search for my death.”

Horror fills him hard and fast, and he doesn’t even falter at calling her by her name, formalities forgotten in his panic. “Helen! No!”

She ignores him, and when she sees his hand moving to hers, he feels the tip of another blade at his stomach. “I do not want to hurt you - stay away from me.” He freezes, and somehow gets caught in the sight of the ripped veil previously hidden by her hood, now hanging loose over her curls. He chastises himself, and grits his teeth in frustration - she is a siren, she must be, but she is also mad and naive and Gods, is she beautiful; but before he can reason with her, she cries. “I am cursed! This - this face, this grace I was bestowed with, I never wanted it, and it is no prize, nor is it a blessing! You said so: it is doom, it only brings destruction and ashes and blood and pain!” Her hands are shaking violently, earthquakes raging inside her, and a agony-filled scream tears itself from her. “You kill because you are good at it, you are a warrior, you were born to tear down whoever stands in your way. I was made damaged goods, to please, to be a pawn - I have never had a choice. And now people are dying because of me, because of the ‘face that launched those ships’, as you claimed.” She heaves a breath, and he is worried about the possibility of her passing out, but she goes on, as passionate as before if not more. “I am no longer Helen of Sparta, nor am I Helen of Troy; I am notHelen anymore. I am a face for whom people die, and I loathe myself for it.” 

He is holding himself still, drowning in every word of hers, every tear she cries. Even a dark heart as his, as empty as it may have been after all he had lost, goes to her. How can something so beautiful be so broken?

The loveliest things are the most breakable. 

He holds her gaze evenly, the ones who had been hauled to Troy trailing so much blood in her wake. “Maiming your beauty won’t bring peace.”

Her smile is feral. “It will bring peace to me. I will be free.” 

The blade surges forward.

His hand is there before it can touch her, and the point of the dagger buries itself next to her ear, a trickle of divine blood dripping from where it has barely nicked her. He has both of her wrists trapped in his hands, framing her head in a move so sudden she can’t possibly try to fight him until it is too late. She growls and her knee flies to meet his groin, but he moves before it can make contact. She trashes and kicks and curses, and he just waits, taking her harsh and more colorful words until the moment when she breaks. 

He had wondered earlier about Helen’s smile being as beautiful as she is. He can vouch now how Helen’s crying is still the most beautiful, broken sight he has ever come across in his pitiful life. 

He bows until his head hovers in front of hers, foreheads almost touching, in a move so tentative he almost feels like laughing at himself for acting like a nervous boy with his first maid or a hunter trying not to scare off a bleeding animal through the forest. “Legends and tales may remember your beauty eons from now, but they will often miss the most significant details of our stories. They will not know of your bravery.” He pauses when her forehead tips to his, and he sees her eyes, surprised and confused, as they stare up at him. “Nor will they know of your strength or your will to fight. You called me a warrior, princess, but so are you. Wars aren’t won just on the battlefield.”

Her expression resembles nothing he has seen before - wonder, self-doubt, gratitude; she looks so much like a child, that looking at her sends a pang of longing for home, of leaving all this bloodshed and misery behind. “Why does it matter, then, if nobody knows about it?” she whispers.

His lips curve in a smile, a real one, something he hasn’t done in a long time - not since parrying with Patroclus and hearing him recount stories of their childhood to his men; wrapping his arm around Briseis’ shoulders and showing her the constellations, finding their little corner of peace in the middle of a war; his mother’s proud eyes whenever she looked at him. 

And now, as he lets their joined hands drop and her nose softly bumps his, lips a breath apart, he wishes to keep doing so - because of her, because of the broken swan standing in front of him.

“Let legend have your beauty. They may not know about the rest, but I do. I see you.”

He was wrong.

Her smile is even more beautiful than she is.

**Author's Note:**

> check out the glorious art that chinx created for this crazy troy au that stormed inside brains:  
> http://seastarved.tumblr.com/post/88211222798/troy-au-series-the-grand-days-of-great-men-and


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